Friday, June 17, 2016

It’s hot in Kihei. That fact is neither newsworthy nor controversial.
But what is newsworthy is the heating up of the South Maui House seat.
Democrats have got a real primary on their hands this year.

In one corner you have our incumbent, the twenty-seven- year-old
Kaniela Ing—arguably the youngest incumbent in our State’s history. Ing
ran for office in 2012, beat out three other candidates in the primary,
and then beat then-Republican and former-police officer incumbent George
Fontaine. Ing grew up on Maui. His campaign website boasts of
having a father who waited tables at Raffles in Wailea while his mom
sold shoes at Liberty House (that was the anchor store at the Queen
Kaahumanu Center back in the 1980s for you newcomers). He worked in
pineapple fields over the summer and graduated among the first class of
the Kamehameha Schools Maui Campus in 2006. He was the first in
his family to go to college and is proud of it. In college he made a
splash by being elected the first neighbor islander to serve as the
student body president. His spouse is a civil rights activist. They have
a newborn son.

Then there’s his challenger: Deidre Tegarden. It’s unclear if she came
from Maui, but she did attend McKinley High School in Honolulu. Her
mother was a journalist and she had the fortunate opportunity to travel
extensively through Asia as a young woman. She earned a degree in
Chinese and Japanese studies from the University of Maryland.
She’s fluent in Chinese and Japanese and lived abroad before moving to
Maui in 1997. Her first job on the island was with the Outrigger Hotel
and Resort in Wailea as the Conference Services Manager. She was also a
manager of the Hula Bowl Maui event, where she was in charge of
logistics, sales, and marketing. Tegarden’s background appears
to be in coordinating ceremonies and events between Hawaii and Asia. In
government she worked under the administration of Mayor Charmaine
Tavares and later Governor Neil Abercrombie as Chief of Protocol for the
State of Hawaii. Tegarden has been campaigning hard in Kihei.
Her signs can be found from Maui Meadows to Kalama Park. She’s also got
the endorsements of major labor unions on the island, including hotel
workers and carpenters. Ing, however, has the endorsement of the Sierra
Club and is starting to campaign too. The race is just starting
to heat up. This week, the Maui News reported that in announcing his
Sierra Club endorsement, Ing argued that the primary election “presents a
clear choice between the old boy network’s trajectory of unchecked
growth or a new grass-roots approach of smart growth and environmental
stewardship.” Tegarden was quick to respond and called the
announcement a “petty political rhetoric and attack.” She got into it
herself by claiming that Ing has the one of the lowest attendance rates
in the Legislature and that he is the “only Neighbor Island committee
chair not to pass any legislation these past two years[.]” Ing
shot back. He called the attendance dig a “mainland-style attack” that
has “no place on Maui.” He explained his tardiness was caused by
committee meetings running late and by being on Maui. He explained some
absences were caused by health concerns for his partner and the birth of
his son. As for passing bills, Tegarden got it wrong. Ing told
the Maui News that he authored a bill requiring state board members to
have some kind of training in Native Hawaiian law and landscaping to
require native indigenous plants. But there’s more to it than
that. In 2014, Ing introduced and was the first to sign off on a bill
that allowed same-day registration, a progressive move toward opening
the voting franchise. The bill allows those who would otherwise be
eligible to vote but were late in registering, to vote at absentee polls
or the voting booth itself on election day. It has the dramatic effect
of increasing the voter franchise and empowering more people to
participate in democracy. Ironically, Gov. Abercrombie, Tegarden’s
former boss, signed it into law. And of course there’s the high
school. Both candidates are crediting themselves in getting a Kihei High
School built. Ing says that he helped funnel monies toward its
construction and secured the support of lawmakers to make it happen.
Tegarden credited herself for walking the ranch land grounds in 2011
with former Gov. Abercrombie, who later “signed the paperwork to acquire
the land.” And so it begins. Everyone likes to claim that they
want to run a clean campaign, but I have my doubts. I think folks
actually want to the see the candidates go at it like this to see what
they’re made of. It may be hot in South Maui right now, but given that
this is just the start of what could be war of words between the
candidates, it’s only going to get hotter.

Friday, June 3, 2016

I use a word in my column that until recently has never
caused pause for me until recently. It’s a word we all know. I have known it my
entire life. It’s been used to describe me. I’ve used it to describe myself and
used it to describe others. But perhaps I shouldn’t.

I use the word “haole” interchangeably with Caucasian
and white. No, I don’t apply the word to non-Hawaiians like Asians or even
Portuguese. It was just the word we use to describe white people in Hawaii. But
then not too long ago, someone pointed out to me that the word brought back
painful memories of his school days, when local kids would use the term with
disdain. I started talking to others about the use of the word, and many whites
consider it racist or prejudicial.

Let’s start with its meaning; its literal meaning. One
story is that the word means “without breath or life.” Many believe this word
became associated with foreigners—particularly white foreigners—who were
ignorant of the traditional greeting among Hawaiians, in which people got close
enough to share each other’s breath. Those who didn’t do that were considered
“without breath” or life (ha meaning breath or life and ole meaning without).

This origin has its critics. University of Hawaii
linguist Albert Schutz pointed out that this origin story is too dismissive of
the languages use of long vowels and glottal stops. The word haole has neither the ‘okina or the
kahako, while the shorter words ha
(with a long “a”) and ’ole does. For
Schutz, there is no evidence that this is the true etymology of the word.

The term was around before statehood. Nineteenth-century
scholar, David Malo, uses it in his writings to refer to not people, but things
that were of foreign origin. Chants use the word to describe people from far
off places like Tahiti or the Marquesas.

At some point, the word went from describing something
foreign to describing an ethnic group: Caucasians. When that happened is
unclear, but it might have happened fairly early on. Hawaiian dictionaries
point out that Native Hawaiians used the term to apply to Americans and
Europeans during the period of the kingdom.

Now I personally have nothing wrong with the word—even
when it’s used as a pejorative. Kanaka maoli, a newer term used to describe Native
Hawaiians, have a long and justified list of grievances against the whites who
came to the islands.

Caucasians may have brought over things like mirrors,
nails, and other trinkets that were alluring at the time, but they also brought
disease, capitalism, and a way of thinking and life that resulted in complete
destruction to their way of life and culture. They were the harbingers of great
change for the islands and its inhabitants. And not every change was a good
thing.

Being mad at what happened is understandable. After all,
the whites came to these islands and took everything. They introduced diseases,
converted inhabitants to a new religion, made up private property, and then
brought about the overthrow of an independent kingdom.

The sentiment isn’t reserved for just Hawaiians. During
the plantation era, sugar and pineapple companies brought in whites to run their
plantations and it didn’t matter how much experience they had in the islands. They
oversaw workers and managers of other races. Even in our post-plantation era,
Caucasians still are in management and leadership positions—and it’s worse when
folks are imported from the mainland.

At that point, the word haole meant more than just white,
which is why Portuguese folks aren’t considered haole. Locals use the term to
describe a certain insensitivity to the island way of life. For example, if a
person comes into a workplace and constantly talks about how things are done in
far off and arguably more efficient places like California or the mainland, you
might be branded a haole.

Which brings its usage on school campuses, the beach,
and just about anywhere else in the islands. Is it an insult? Sure. It can be.
The noun is oftentimes preceded by colorful adjectives like “dumb,” “stupid,”
or of course, the gerund form of the f-word. It is oftentimes used to describe
a white person who is out of step with local culture, but sometimes it is used
well within local culture.

For many newcomers, who grew up and became accustomed to
living within a white majority on the mainland, this is a jarring and shocking
experience. But that doesn’t mean it’s justified to make fun of someone’s race.

And that brings me back to my column. At first I felt
that the word haole was perfectly fine. Those who were insulted by the term or
hurt by it are just being too sensitive and need to realize the long history of
imperialism here. But at the same time, it is unfair to judge folks and their
attitudes toward the islands and its people by virtue of the color of their
skin. So maybe I am the one who should be more sensitive.